


Punchdrunk (People Like Us)

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Biphobia, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Drug Dealing, I'm going to update tags and characters once I'm done!, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Multi, Problematic Language/Dialogue, Self-Acceptance, Self-Denial, problematic characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:40:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8340175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Seungcheol runs away to a new university to escape the present, and Soonyoung is his new (and eccentric) drug dealer.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this was supposed to be for a fic exchange but i didn't finish it on time. because my life is a fucking hell hole! it still fucking is! i wrote this kind of not in a good place so my style feels off and the whole tone feels weird ;_______; i'm really so sorry.
> 
> this is my first time writing something ~like this~ and i think that's making it hard for me to write it and since its for someone else the pressure is really!!!!!! crushing!!!!!! im sorry this is so WEIRD And not right. i tried... i am trying FUCK.
> 
>  **Warning** : this fic has characters that do and say shitty things. but i dont want to push anything too much and i personally can only write someone being so terrible. so nothing gets extremely immorally problematic to the extent that this fic is a toxic representation? people will redeem themselves. that's the only thing i'll say T____T;; i want to write "shitty" people, but i also want to write it in a way that lets the reader know that it isnt OKAY to be that way and i'll try to display that through the main character (SEUNGCHEOL!) on his journey of realization and growing the fuck up.
> 
>  **Warning 2** : the f*ggot slur is used.
> 
> this will also be my first time writing seungcheol omg x________x i hope i don't let anyone down, especially kristine! nayoung and doyoon are charas in this first part but not tagged so i dont clog up their tags (and they arent main characters i guess ;;)
> 
> finally, for kristine. i'm so sorry this is late _and_ unfinished. i wanted to write a sooncheol you thought would be good, but still inherently ~my style~. i really, really didn't want to let you down. and i feel like i have lol.... i will try to make this better for you or write the 2seung u deserve. for now, hold me. i'm sorry.

(i).  

 

“You’re going to miss me right?” Her voice is soft and small, hands uncomfortable in her lap, and the distance between them is new and jarring. Seungcheol can’t remember the last time they sat this far apart next to each other. Tenth grade before they realized they liked each other?

 

The overhead light of his bedroom is off, and the string lights she hung up two years ago on his wall to “make it nice in here” are the only source. The glow of them is golden and dim, and it shines on her hair, across her face. She’s grown her hair out since they graduated high school; it’s long—cascading down her back, curling at the ends in the front. 

 

“Babe—,” her head jolts up at this word. “Nayoung,” he corrects himself, “of course I will.” Seungcheol outreaches his hand to reassure her on the thigh but decides against it, drawing it back to him. He can’t do that anymore.

 

“I won’t forget about you,” he answers to her silent question They’re promises he knows deep down he probably can’t keep; he isn’t starry eyed and blind or a wishful thinker. He’s transferring to a university in a big city a hundreds of miles away with a million new people, to an entirely different experience. And Seungcheol won’t admit it, but nothing here is keeping him from leaving this small town on the edge of nowhere. He likes Nayoung, and Nayoung likes him; but they both know this is it. Seungcheol feels too self-aware, and he hates it. Maybe it’s better that way.

 

They fuck anyway. 

 

Seungcheol lays her down on his childhood sheets, worn and faded from age and washing. They feel as soft as her skin, and her hair is a dark halo above her head, loose strands in her mouth. Beauty marks from years in the sun dance carelessly across the edges of her face—to the one above her lip—to the three on her neck in a perfect diagonal—to the the dips of her shoulders—to the plane of her chest. He kisses her on each significant point: her forehead, neck, breasts, down her torso. The pooch of her tummy is supple, and he kisses her here the longest—his favorite part of her. She feels malleable and sweet under rough hands; her heels dig into the small of his back, knees against his hips. 

 

She cries.    
  
Seungcheol doesn’t.    
  
It’s slow at first; it’s slow, and she rakes her long nails across the expanse of Seungcheol’s back—what she can reach at least. She begs him to go faster; make her feel it tomorrow—make her feel it three days from now.    
  
This is the last time. They both know that. Seungcheol is leaving, and if he comes back— _ if _ —he won’t be the same. She won’t be the same. They’ll meet other people, become other people. 

  
She’ll meet someone here—or reconnect with an old friend. Fall in love with someone she met in high school. Someone Seungcheol is probably friends with. She’ll text him about awkwardly in a few months. He’ll say he’s happy for her (he won’t respond until the next day).    
  
Seungcheol is going to meet people, too. He’s going to fuck girls he just met in places he’ll only have been to once or never before. He’s going to leave their beds at five in the morning, before class starts, and shower in some random dorm’s communal bathroom. He won’t speak to them again, and they’ll stop looking in his general direction eventually. He’s going to get drunk with his new friends, party, and fuck girls. It’ll be fun—it’ll be an experience.    
  
He thinks that, anyway. That’s what college  _ is _ for people like him. What it hasn’t been so far. So far it’s been small local university life with everyone he’s ever met since the first grade and a girlfriend he has dated since the summer before his senior year of high school.    
  
He fucks her fast, and she says she loves him. He only says he’ll miss her, and that isn’t a lie. They aren’t seventeen anymore. It’s not the same for some reason. Seungcheol doesn’t know why.    
  
He fucks her until she tells him she’s almost there—“ _ keep going _ ”—until her thighs convulse and her back arches, clenching around him. He pulls out before he orgasms, not wanting to come inside her. That’s risky: he’s leaving, and she’s going to find someone else. It’s also a responsibility he doesn’t want to take care of if she were to get pregnant. Her breathing is heavy in the silence, and he jerks himself off onto her stomach.    
  
The seventeen year old he used be is still in love with her, but the Seungcheol at twenty-one doesn’t think he’s going to miss her (he lied). She kisses him, and it’s like she’s telling him she feels the same. 

 

She doesn’t stay. She says goodbye and that she’ll text him once he’s “settled in.”

  
  


(ii). 

 

In Seungcheol’s first year of middle school, his father applied him to be in the magnet school program—a public school that offered higher levels of learning and different subjects and classes he couldn’t get at a “regular” public school. You had to be  _ accepted _ , so the student body was full of people extremely different from Seungcheol. He doesn’t want to call them eggheads or freaks  _ now _ , but at the time that’s exactly what they felt like. They were artsy. They were sciencey. He was none of that. 

 

He felt out of place, alone, uncomfortable. He had just moved from his shitty public middle school where he had established his friend group, his place on the baseball team,  _ himself _ . He dicked around in school bathrooms, skipped class with his shitty friends, loitered on the field after school, texted cute girls on his ugly flip-phone. Everyone in his new school already had their friends; since everyone has to be accepted, most people started their magnet school careers their first year of middle school—not their second like Seungcheol. The school wasn’t even the same town he was from—it was the center of the county, and Seungcheol was from a small town in the northern part of the county—so he really had never seen a single face before.

 

His uniform looked stupid on him. The white button up with the school initials monogrammed into the breast pocket, hem of it tucked neatly into gray slacks. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he couldn’t move. He resorted to leaving shirt untucked and never wore the proper shoes, always choosing to wear his old pair of Etnies until they didn’t fit anymore after his growth spurt. 

 

After a few days, Seungcheol warmed up to his classmates and vice versa. He wasn’t used to how everything was structured yet or how people were, but at least he was getting  _ somewhere _ socially. He finally had people he could talk comfortably with, people to sit with at lunch, people to hang out with in gym class. They weren’t his friends, though, and it was always painfully apparent. He tried his best to fill that void on the weekends with friends from his old school, but eventually they left him behind. How transient childhood friendships were hit Seungcheol like a train.

 

Gym class was structured in the way that everyone from the same grade had gym at the same time: boys on one side of the gym, girls on the other. Everyone sat in their designated places in their rows until the coaches would allow them to disperse freely.

 

Doyoon sat next to Seungcheol in gym: row five, place seven; he was quiet and handsome, and Seungcheol never tried speaking to him. Something caught Seungcheol’s eye two weeks after the start of school, though, something he hadn’t noticed or even thought to ask anyone about—a school baseball letterman very much belonging to this school, dark green in color with white vinyl letters. Seungcheol can’t remember _why_ he hadn’t noticed a single boy wearing one, only that this is why Seungcheol spoke up to Doyoon at all. Maybe it was just too hot outside, so none of the team members felt like wearing it.

 

“This school has a baseball team?” Seungcheol had asked, eyes wide. Doyoon turned his head towards the sudden question, and Seungcheol was almost afraid of him. 

 

“Yeah, we have one. We suck, though,” he replied. 

 

“Damn, that sucks…” Seungcheol trailed off. “I was on the team at my last school.”

 

“Oh, dude, cool. What’s your position? I’m a starter.” 

 

“Power pitcher,” Seungcheol says. He felt shy, and he wished he had been a little cooler at the time. But Seungcheol guesses it all worked out well enough in the end.

 

“Sweet, we’re both pitchers,” Doyoon had laughed. “You’re new right? I’m Doyoon.” Seungcheol knows Doyoon only asked out of courtesy—new kids weren’t common, and he obviously stuck out like a sore thumb. It made Seungcheol feel better, even just a little bit, in a weird way.

 

“Seungcheol.”

 

“I hope you try out for the team. You look like you’re good at playing.”

 

“Yeah, I will.”

  
  
  
  


Seungcheol and Doyoon eventually became more-than-acquaintances-but-less-than-friends. Seungcheol added him on MySpace (back when MySpace was still in the most basic web design and served as a social networking site instead of the new age music shit it turned into after that bastard Justin Timberlake bought it in 2011), and he was always excited when the little orange “Online Now” icon would flash under Doyoon’s image in his “friends’ space.” 

 

He mustered up the courage to message (not  leave a public comment on his profile, but  _ message _ ) him one Friday night in late September. He sent some bullshit message asking about tryouts for the team, and looking back on it Seungcheol feels a little embarrassed for it. It led to the exchange of cellphone numbers and Doyoon asking if Seungcheol wanted to spend the night Saturday.

 

After that, Seungcheol spent every weekend at Doyoon’s house or Doyoon at his. He became Doyoon’s mom’s second son, and Seungcheol was there so often that he didn’t even need to ask if he could have something out of the fridge anymore.

 

Seungcheol remembers his mom and dad sitting him down one night asking if Seungcheol “had anything to tell them” about him and Doyoon, and Seungcheol stormed off in anger, slamming the door so hard the picture frames fell off the wall and shattered on the floor. This same thing ran on from then until even now—friends making jokes, parents asking questions,  _ friends’ parents _ asking questions. Most of it ended when Seungcheol started dating Nayoung, but it didn’t die entirely—always making both Doyoon and Seungcheol uncomfortable.  “Fuck off with that faggot shit,” he can clearly recall saying. Doyoung never dated, and the jokes at him were always a constant because of it.

 

Doyoon was, undoubtedly, Seungcheol’s best fucking friend. They did everything together; he told him all his secrets; they shared interests. Doyoon was the thing that saved Seungcheol from loneliness from middle school to  _ now _ . Doyoon was absolutely everything Seungcheol needed at the time. There were fights (verbal and physical), there were girls they both liked, there were silent treatments, there were misunderstandings. But in the end, Doyoon was his closest person, and he remained exactly that for the next seven years. 

 

Seungcheol doesn’t know how he feels about leaving Doyoon, just that he has to.

 

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


“You packed everything into that bitch?” Doyoon asks, referring to Seungcheol’s beaten 1996 moss-green Range Rover. Doyoon is definitely not the thirteen year old he was when they met. He’s still  _ inherently  _ Doyoon, but it’s different; they’ve gotten older. And he’s gotten attractive, broad, muscular. Years of playing baseball together has filled them both out well, and it’s hard to ignore the contrast. When Seungcheol looks at the photo of them on the corkboard in his room, faded from the years, he thinks time has moved not at all yet all too much.

 

“No thanks to you, dick,” Seungcheol says, throwing the last box into the hatchback. 

 

“Just for that, you don’t get a goodbye kiss.” Seungcheol’s dad peeks over his coffee mug at that from the porch, and Seungcheol flips Doyoon off. 

 

“Kiss my ass.”

 

“Gladly.”

 

Seungcheol’s dad clears his throat loudly.

 

“Get in the car,” Seungcheol commands to Doyoon, who follows the direction wordlessly. “Going to drop Doyoon off at his house, Dad. I’m leaving for school after,” he yells to him from the driveway. His father raises his mug in response. Probably the shittiest goodbye he’s ever given to his father, but he feels like the teary eyed one in the kitchen with his mother makes up for it. His shirt still smells like her perfume.

 

“ _ Fuck _ your dad,” Doyoon says exasperatedly when Seungcheol climbs into the driver’s seat, Doyoon’s hand gripping the assist handle above the window. The handle is discolored and worn from all the times Doyoon has held onto it.

 

“You’re telling me,” Seungcheol replies as he puts the keys in the ignition and throws the car into reverse.

 

“I wonder if he’ll ever stop thinking we’re gay. I love you, man, but I don’t want to suck your dick or anything,” Doyoon says, fiddling with radio. Seungcheol barks out a laugh.

 

“Maybe he’d stop thinking we’re gay if you stopped talking about my ass in front of him,” Seungcheol offers jokingly, hands on the wheel. 

 

“Old people today,” Doyoon sighs. “They’ll never understand the male youth or friendship.”

 

“Oh, fuck you.”

  
  
  
  


 

They reminisce and talk about school on the twenty-four minute interstate drive to Doyoon’s house, and the realization of leaving settles inside of Seungcheol. The steering wheel feels weird in his palms and like his hands don’t belong on his wrists anymore. He’s going eighty miles an hour, but it’s like one hundred twenty. Seungcheol doesn’t want to come to the exit Doyoon’s town is at (exit  132; Seungcheol’s is exit 133B); it feels too real and too soon. It’s not like he’ll never see Doyoon again. It’s not like they’ll never speak again. This isn’t the end, but it sure fucking feels like it. Seungcheol wonders if his girlfriend and his best friend will become close after he leaves. 

  
  


The familiar green exit sign comes into view, and Doyoon says “here we are” like he has every other time they’ve done this.

 

Doyoon’s city is the biggest in the county, and even if Seungcheol is from a little town in the northern part, he still knows how to navigate it just as if he had lived here his whole life. Seungcheol thinks he basically has, anyway; he’s spent enough time over here the last half decade with Doyoon. 

 

It’s only a little after 10 AM by the time Seungcheol pulls into Doyoon’s driveway, the engine running while they remain parked on the cement, the air conditioner blowing at setting four because settings one through three stopped working in 2012 (Seungcheol is freezing, but it’s too hot outside to turn it off).

 

“This is it,” Doyoon says, slapping his palms against his thighs. Seungcheol wishes Doyoon hadn’t said it that way, but he can’t find another way to put it either. 

 

It’s quiet, aside from the air conditioner blowing (Doyoon gave up with the radio eventually). He hasn’t gotten out of the car yet, and Seungcheol wishes he could tell himself he’d sit here forever—but something in him doesn’t  _ want  _ to. Seungcheol doesn’t want to stay here with Doyoon, and he’s not sure  _ why _ . If anything, Doyoon should be the one thing keeping him from wanting to leave this shitty, little town with all these shitty, nobody people he’s known for too goddamned long—but maybe that’s his answer? Deep down, even if unsure about what it is exactly, Seungcheol knows it’s not  _ just  _ that.

 

“This is crazy,” Seungcheol finally lets out, dropping his hands off the wheel and his skull against the headrest.

 

“Yeah.” Doyoon leans forward, elbows on his thighs and hands clasped together. 

 

“Are you going to come back during your breaks?” 

 

“I don’t know.” Probably not.

 

“What about your mom?” 

 

“I don’t know.” Seungcheol covers his face with both of his palms and drops them to his lap after dragging them down his face. 

 

“I understand, dude. Don’t worry about it. I really understand.” And Seungcheol knows Doyoon  _ does  _ understand—it’s in his voice, in his actions, in how he looks at him—exactly what Seungcheol himself  _ can’t _ . Seungcheol feels so aware of absolutely everything but not of this. Whatever it is, maybe it’ll go away over the next two years away from here. 

 

Seungcheol lolls his head to the side. “I’m going to miss you, man.”

 

Doyoon peeks over his shoulder at this. “I’m going to miss you, too.” It’s so gentle, and Doyoon almost sounds broken apart.  “Well,” he speaks up, straightening himself, “I have to get my shit together for school, too. Classes start in two days.” His hand lingers on the door handle. “Just two more semesters, dude. Then I’m out.” 

 

“I’m jealous,” Seungcheol replies.

 

“It’s gonna take you longer than the average person because of the circumstances.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Seungcheol says, smiling. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that year off after graduating. I feel too old for this starting-over shit.”

 

“You’ll make it, dude. I swear.” Doyoon opens the door and walks around the front of the car, and Seungcheol rolls his window for one last exchange.

 

“This is it,” Doyoon says again. This is the end.

 

“Where’s that goodbye kiss, babe?”

 

Doyoon is unreadable for a split second before he presses his hand into Seungcheol’s face. “Bye, Seungcheol.”

 

He waves goodbye from his front door as Seungcheol backs out into the street for the ten thousandth and last time.

  
  


(iii).

 

The six hour drive to the university is boring and lonely; there’s nothing to see but fields and rest stops almost the entirety of the four hundred mile journey. The radio stations come in and out with each radio tower’s reaches he passes out of, and he eventually gives up on searching for a station that comes through without static, turning it off in defeat. The only CD in his car is an old mix he made in the eighth grade, and Seungcheol’s not sure he wants to put himself through awful, emo rock bands and bad rap music by artists he’s sure haven’t released a notable single since, so he drives in silence the remaining three hours. Seungcheol feels like he’s going stir crazy, and the exit to his new city isn’t coming up fast enough. 

 

In the silence, Seungcheol’s mind thinks about Doyoon and Nayoung, again, together. Will they find comfort in each other? Will they become close? Will the text he knows he’ll undoubtedly receive in a few months time be Nayoung saying she’s in love with Doyoon? Would he be happy for them?

 

Seungcheol doesn’t want to think about it; it doesn’t matter anymore, not really. It’s over. He’s not going back.

  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  


Seungcheol’s dorm is empty when he opens the door, boxes set roughly outside of its frame with a loud thud. He only wanted to make two trips tops from his dorm building’s parking lot, but a lanky looking kid noticed him struggling, three more boxes he couldn’t dream of lifting stacked haphazardly by his car, and offered to help. Seungcheol can’t remember his name—it started with a “V,” or  _ maybe _ an “H,” and Seungcheol doesn’t know  _ how  _ he could possibly mix those two letters up, but he’s sure he’ll see him again if he lives in the building. 

 

Someone else definitely lives here; their shit is scattered not only on their side of the room, but  _ also  _ Seungcheol’s. The evening sunlight filters through cheap, slatted blinds onto the mess, and it’s almost reminiscent of home where orange southern sun would come through the only window in his room and shine romantically on his own wreck of a room—a mix of his, Nayoung’s, and even Doyoon’s shit all over the place. Seungcheol feels weird. But it’s not his room back home, and these things don’t belong to someone he knows. 

 

The walls are cement blocks painted over in an off-white, damaged here and there from the years of students’ wear and tear, holes from thumbtacks and torn paint from tape being ripped off from posters or pictures. The beds are small twins, two on each side of the room, if Seungcheol could even  _ call _ this skeleton with a cushion a fucking bed. The tiled floors shine in the sun, but they’re still dirty from years of them being waxed over before mopping, the spots of dirt and whatever else now blending with the colored, painted flecks in the tile now. It doesn’t feel like a room, but it’s home now.

 

He throws his garbage bag of clothes onto his bed (because fuck a suitcase) and shoves his roommate’s things back onto what he assumes is his roommate’s side—the only indication being there is a more consolidated disaster on the right side than the left. Seungcheol can’t help but feel a  _ little  _ pissed at the wreck because, hey, someone else fucking lives here now, but he doesn’t even have the energy to be aggressive about it.

 

Outside in the hallway, the voices and noises get louder as people are settling in—boxes landing on floors, doors opening and closing, people laughing, running down the halls, dropping things, friends hugging. It’s a crazy commotion, but the energy is so light and vexing, Seungcheol wishes he could participate. But he still feels out of place, and he doesn’t know anyone yet. The voice in the back of his head is trying to convince him this is all a mistake until a soft faced girl with a broad-ridged but absolutely fitting nose waves politely at him, probably knowing he’s a new face—maybe feeling a little sorry for him because she probably knows who his roommate is.  Her thighs look cute in her tennis skirt, and her blouse shows off her chest and shoulders. He smiles a big toothy smile, it’s goofy but charming—always trying to be charming—maybe he’ll see her again; she’s attractive. Seungcheol hopes she’s single or at least willing to play dirty. 

 

He thinks about getting up to talk to her, introduce himself, but before he can think, someone comes up to her and steals her attention. Her eyes light up in recognition and then in happiness, pretty mouth opening to express that, eyes crinkling up into crescents. She opens her arms to hug the person, bouncing onto the tips of her toes to reach his neck. The guy has a mess of shark-blue damaged hair, army green jacket sleeves pushed up to his elbows, donning a black Jansport backpack. His side profile is so strong and angular, Seungcheol is almost jealous. This guy seems to be glowing—literally, and Seungcheol realizes he’s probably wearing what Nayoung would yell at him and say “It’s called  _ highlighter _ , Seungcheol. It makes you look shimmery.” His black denim skinnies are tight around his toned thighs and calves, and Seungcheol can’t look away. 

 

They talk for a minute and a half, Seungcheol watching the entire time but not being able to hear anything they say. He hits her in the arm playfully, and Seungcheol wonders what their relationship is. He talks physically close to her, whispers in her ear, and she laughs. But Seungcheol’s never met any straight man dress that way—there’s no way they’re anything. She peeks at Seungcheol, and he’s startled, heart racing. Glancing suspiciously fast at his box, he starts unpacking with shaking hands. God, he’s only been here for an hour and already trying to figure out how to get with a girl he doesn’t even know.

 

“Hey, roomie,” a particularly loud voice calls through the open door, disrupting the swirl of fog and electricity in Seunghcheol’s head.

 

Seungcheol turns around hesitantly, but he’s soon greeted with some tall leaning against the frame. His voice doesn’t match his face and frame at all, Seungcheol feels, but his height oddly does.

 

“Hey,” he replies, outstretching a firm hand. The dark stranger takes it, hands cold, and shakes Seungcheol’s hand loosely. It’s weird. “I’m Seungcheol....,” he trails off. He’s not sure what to say to this person—the owner of this hell hole, actually, now that Seungcheol thinks about it.

 

“Wonwoo,” is all he says, dropping his arm back to his side. “Welcome to Hell on Earth.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhh im not sure what to say T___T thank you for enduring until the end. i will try to finish it eventually!
> 
> comments are appreciated ;___;;; and i'm willing to clear up any misunderstandings or assumptions about my personal views.
> 
> this is really not what im used to writing but i do want to continue this and challenge myself and write something kristine (and you guys!) likes T__T


End file.
